Abstract

Can machines think? Alan Turing's decades-old question still influences artificial intelligence because of the simple test he proposed in his article in Mind. In this article, "AI Magazine collects presentations about the first round of the classic Turing Test of machine intelligence, held November 8, 1991 at The Computer Museum, Boston. Robert Epstein, Director Emeritus, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, and an adjunct professor of psychology, Boston University, University of Massachusetts (Amherst), and University of California (San Diego) summarizes some of the difficult issues during the planning of this first real-time competition, and describes the event. He then speculates about the future of the competition and about its significance to the AI community. Presented in tandem with Dr. Epstein's article is the actual transcript of session that won the Loebner Prize Competition -- Joseph Weintraub's computer program PC Therapist.